I wondering if anyone else feels as though they can never have a constant basal rate. Mine seem to fluctuate sometimes day by day, and others week by week. I constantly have to change and tweak them. Often after going to my endo, my rates will be good for about a week, then I have to change them. I normally have been attributing it towards being a woman and having cycles. I am starting to think that maybe I am just insulin sensitive and the pump isn’t fine-tuning my dosages enough- thus creating a minor rollercoasting effect.
I generally take 20-40 units a day- with most days at 25-30. During my cycle I jump up to 35-40 per day.
Anyone else in this boat?
Hi Ginny. I have been on an insulin pump for about 8 months now. I have discovered the same thing. I also have a six year old on the pump, so I have lots of “data” to analyze. What I have discovered is that for each site, I have had to program a different basal. I have two - one for hip, one for arm. My son has three. I started experimenting with this a couple of months ago, and it worked! A good way to test this on yourself would be when you see a blood sugar increase, do a temp basal increase and see if it helps. I find that I have to do temp basal increases here and there, even with my different basal settings. And oftentimes, on the first day of a new pod, I will have my numbers be a bit high, and sometimes on the third day they will go a bit high again, too. I’m not sure how long you’ve been on the pump, but I have also found that sometimes I will correct a batch of highs/lows at the same time of day by changing my IC ratio and/or correction ratios (after I have done a day of fasting and know my basals are not the issue). It’s a lot of work!!
Shoot…hormones, insulin sensitivity, varying sites, pod changes (first day and last.) I will be curious to see what other reasons people have noticed for otherwise unexplained out of range numbers. Does it happen to all of us?
A lot of people create variable basal rate profiles for the week: weekdays x weekend, and within a day: morning x lunch time x evening. It’s typically based on their activity level, etc. The OmniPod system allows for that so you should probably look into using it, if you don’t do it already. Talk to your CDE.
Yeah, I actually have a few different basal rate profiles set up for different times of the week and month- all with different rates within a day.
It seems though all the variables in life really mess with my rates- that being said this is fine-tuning that I am mostly discussing. But if I do not then my blood sugars get weird. Honestly when I think about all the variables that influence blood sugar and the timing, it is a bit overwhelming.
I was talking to a friend the other day, who is also on the pump, and I mentioned that I had to tweak my rates a lot, and he was surprised. So I was curious if other people could set- say a weekend vs. weekday basal rate and just stick to them for prolonged periods of time. I was also curious about a correlation to this issue and daily rates.
